


The Long Fight

by orphan_account



Series: Counted [4]
Category: Criminal Minds
Genre: Case Fic, Epilepsy, M/M, Morgan loves Reid, Seizure, Seizures, absence seizure, postictal, postictal care, seizure disorder, tonic clonic seizure
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-01-13
Updated: 2015-01-13
Packaged: 2018-03-07 08:51:22
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,243
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3168863
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"Three and a half minutes." Hotch said quietly and Derek looked up at him. "Paramedics?"</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Long Fight

Penelope's fingers clicked speedily over the keys of the computer as she fished deeper and deeper into encrypted files for the names Hotchner needed. She barely even flinched when her phone rang and reached across effortlessly to answer the call. "Go for Garcia." She chirped.

"Hi Sweetie."

She smiled brightly. "Hey there, sugar." She giggled as she heard Derek laugh. "What can I do for you, delicious?"

"I need your expert tracking skills." Derek said seriously.

Penelope nodded to herself. "Sure." She agreed, "Do you have a lead on the unsub?" Derek was quiet a moment and Penelope pressed him for information. "Morgan? What's going on?"

"Can you find Spencer?" Derek finally asked. "We had a fight, he won't answer my calls."

Penelope sighed, "Give him some space, sugar." She said calmly. "He'll calm down and call you when he's ready."

"Could you please just tell me where he is?" Derek asked, his tone adopted a sharp edge and Penelope didn't like it.

"I'm not here to spy on you guys for each other's arguments, okay?" She grumbled. With a sigh, she accessed the GPS on Reid's phone and begrudgingly gave his location to Derek. "Do you know where Hotchner is?" She asked and Derek hummed a yes. "He's with him." She hoped her roundabout way of offering it up would void her from real responsibility.

"Thank you." Derek exhaled, genuinely relieved.

"Please don't use this information to turn up and fight more." Penelope begged.

Derek sighed and softened his tone, "I won't. I just need to know he's okay, he left in a real temper and I want him to know I'm sorry we had the fight. I can't focus on work if I can't get him off my mind. He - he had a fit this morning, I tried to make him rest and he wouldn't and we had a fight about it."

Penelope gasped, "Is he alright?"

"Probably." Derek rubbed his neck as he replied at length. "I just need to know he's okay."

Penelope felt a pang of sympathy but hid it well as she gushed. "That's so romantic." She smiled. "Garcia out."

 

-*-*-*-*-*-

 

"And just confirm it for me, Mr Snider, the last time you saw your daughter was when she left to start work, at the pizza shack, just before five pm?" Hotch asked in a careful voice, noting the responses he gave carefully.

"Yes." The distraught father replied. "She was in her uniform which means she was wearing a baseball cap. Her hair was tied up in it. She had her music playing, I've always hated how deaf to her surroundings those earpiece things make her." He looked between Hotchner and Reid. "Please - you've got find her, you've got to bring Jess home. She's all I've got left..." He broke down.

"We're doing everything in our power, Mr Snider." Spencer replied, pushing his hands into his trouser pockets, fighting the urge to rub his fingers to his aching temples.

"When her mom died, she really became the rock of the house. I need to know she's okay."

Hotchner nodded his head calmly. "We are doing our best to make sure she is." He dismissed himself and Reid silently and the two left the small family home, stepping out into the warm sunshine that Miami had to offer outside of the air conditioned buildings. "We should run his statement back to the station and maybe meet up with Gideon and JJ, see what they have on Snider's brother."

"You really think Mr Snider wouldn't know if his brother was the one who abducted his daughter?" Spencer asked, frowning to the sun as they walked back to their hired car.

Hotchner shrugged, "right now I'm not sure."

They climbed in the car and Hotchner immediately turned on the air con, relieved to feel the cool air hit his face. Spencer tipped his window down slightly and buckled his seatbelt as Hotch turned over the engine.

"Why do you ask, do you think Dad has involvement?" Hotch asked, steering the car from the driveway and on to the road. "Reid?" He glanced to his right, catching Spencer's obliviousness to his surroundings as he checked out in the midst of an absence seizure, blinking repetitively. Keeping the car moving, but looking across intermittently, Hotchner waited for the telltale sigh Spencer usually gave when he returned to consciousness. After a roughly estimated thirty two seconds, the sound came and Hotch made light work of ignoring the entire thing.

"Do you think the dad is involved somehow?" He asked, glancing at Spencer again.

Spencer shifted in his seat, "I do." He said plainly. "It's common for actors who find crying on cue difficult to use menthol under the eye to induce tearing and produce the redness of the eyes that occurs when somebody is genuinely emotional. He had the tears and he sounded sad, sure, but he smelled like a balsam tissue."

Hotch shook his head in amusement, "Its not possible he just as flu?"

"Possible, yes." Spencer conceded, "But the tears seems to roll from his eyes as though the lower lid was waterproofed - if he used a mentholated cream or gel, it would achieve this effect."

Hotchner nodded his head; Spencer's theory could well be right. "We'll contact Garcia at the station, get her to history check dad too." He reached for his phone from his jacket pocket and retracted it just as it rang. He tossed it to Reid. "Answer that."

Spencer collected the call. "Aaron Hotchner's phone."

"Spence?"

Spencer's brows rose, "Derek... Eh, Hotch is driving. We are just coming back to the station. Can I take a message?"

"No, it's okay I wanted you anyway. Can we talk when you get back?"

"Sure." Spencer said on an exhale. "Bye." 

He kept hold of Aaron's phone as he continued to drive, following road signs carefully that led them back to the station.  
Hotch pulled the car to a halt in the small station car park, he left the engine running a moment and turned to face Spencer. The young agent hadn't moved to unfasten his belt and continued to stare through the windscreen. Hotch counted the seconds - twenty six, twenty seven, twenty eight - and kept his eyes on Reid as he finally inhaled and exhaled deeply, and came back to conscious awareness with a cough. 

"We're here," Hotchner nodded to the doors ahead of them. He held out his hand to retrieve his phone from Spencer and the two climbed from the car in sync to head inside.

 

-*-*-*-*-*-

 

"Spencer made a valid point: are we certain Dad isn't involved? His brother is currently our lead suspect, but would her father really be unaware?" Hotch asked as the reassembled group hashed over their findings.

"Would somebody go that far?" JJ asked unconvinced.

"To feign innocence, who wouldn't?" Derek supposed. "If I wanted to fool police into thinking I hadn't abducted or killed my daughter or didn't know who did, I'd cry like a bitch and if I couldn't cry, I'd sure make it look like I was."

Gideon nodded, "It wouldn't be unusual."

"So dad is officially a suspect." JJ added Alex Snider's name to their rapidly filling whiteboard. "We've lost Spencer." She nodded in Reid's direction at the back of the small conference room and everyone turned to him.

"That's three." Hotch said, an edge of concern furrowing his brow. "He had two in the car." Derek watched Spencer, waiting for his return, then looked to Hotch. "Spencer, are you feeling okay?"

Spencer nodded and got to his feet, approaching the whiteboard. "I think dad is the ringleader and the uncle is doing as he's told. Perhaps Alex Snider has something over his brother?" He placed his hand over the photograph of the uncle and drew his lips to the side as he thought. He turned to face the team and felt his vision distort quickly. He stumbled a little on his feet as vertigo took hold of his balance and cursed. "Shit-fuck..."

Derek and Gideon were on their feet in seconds as Reid stumbled to lean back against the whiteboard and slowly slid himself down as he lost complete balance and awareness. No obvious aura, no signs, Spencer's consciousness rapidly dwindled to nothing as he lay slumped on the floor. 

Morgan quickly fixed his body onto his side and lifted his chin, maintaining a clear airway. He kept his hand between Spencer's cheek and the conference room floor as his limbs began to tighten in the tonic phase of the seizure.

JJ covered her hand to her mouth as she gasped, watching as Spencer's cream chinos darkened as his bladder voided and his eyes rolled. A guttural cry escaped his throat as his limbs began to jerk sharply. 

Spencer's fists were balled tightly together and his ankles spasmed inward rhythmically. His jaw contracted downward with every sharp movement of his arms and watery exhales became the dominant sound in the room as he struggled breaths through his contracting throat.

"It's okay, Spencer. You're doing so good." Derek uttered quietly, careful to prevent injury but also to avoid holding Spencer down while he seized.

Spencer's body convulsed more feverishly and it alarmed JJ. "God, it's getting worse." She mumbled.

"Three and a half minutes." Hotch said quietly and Derek looked up at him. "Paramedics?"

"Not yet," Derek discouraged. "Over five minutes or if he stops and starts again, then call." He instructed and Hotch nodded his understanding. "You're doing so good, Spence." He turned back to his partner.

"Has he ever been in status before?" Gideon asked and Derek shook his head.

"Not since I've known him." He answered warily. "That's continuous seizure activity, right? Yeah, no, not with me. When he fitted this morning I thought that was it, and it was like two minutes and done. I didn't expect this."

Gideon's eyes grew wide. "He had one like this this morning?" He asked, incredulous. "Jesus, Morgan, why was he working?"

Derek looked to his superior, mouth working while nothing came to mind to say. He shrugged and shook his head. "It's Spencer - he just..."

"Four minutes, fifteen seconds." Hotch said, cutting across them, his tone edged with worry. "Derek, I'm gonna call."

Looking up briefly, then back to Spencer. "Don't - he's calming down."

All eyes fell on Spencer again, slightly more relieved, when his jerking limbs subsided into tremors before stilling completely. At five minutes, Spencer was still and breathing calmly. Derek removed his hand from under his head, ignoring the tingling numbness, and pushed Spencer's bangs from his face.

"Spencer, hey, Spence. Open your eyes for me, come on buddy, wake up." Derek repeated his request a further three times before he got purposeful movements from Spencer.

He raised his hand lethargically and rubbed it oddly against his face then let it drop again, huffing an exasperated breath. His eyes opened slowly and he looked at Derek with a confused frown.

"Hey, buddy."

Spencers eyes lulled closed but Derek's gentle caresses on his cheek kept his attention and he opened them again.

"Tired?" Derek asked. Spencer gave a weak nod. "Take you back to the hotel, get some sleep?" Spencer nodded again, his tongue moving without purpose against his teeth.

"I'll see if the officers have spare clothes he can change into and I'll get the car pulled as close to the doors as possible." Hotchner said, leaving the room with a mission that made him feel useful.

"Hey, Reid." Gideon crouched beside Derek as Spencer slowly began to seem lucid. "When you're feeling better, you're in serious trouble kid."

Spencer closed his eyes, exhausted, and his face contorted as he moved his fatigued limbs. Derek pushed his hair from his face, "you okay?"

Spencer shook his achy head slowly, "I'm...'barrassed." He whispered tiredly. "And wet." The tone of his voice sounded so alarmingly like a sob it made JJ's eyes well with tears. Derek's face echoed sympathy.

"It's alright, Spencer." He soothed.

"No." Spencer's voice sounded so young. "It's not. Uhh....so...tired." Spencer's eyes flicked open and closed before fluttering shut, unable to stay awake much longer.

Derek kept Spencer from drifting off with inane questions and raking his hands through his hair until Hotch arrived back, brandishing a blanket where he had failed to find a change a clothes. With Hotch's help, Derek eased Spencer to a sitting position, then to his feet before scooping him up into his arms to carry him from the station, draped in the blanket. Hotch drove them back to the hotel and saw them up to their shared room. Derek assured Hotchner they'd be fine from there and thanked him for his help as he closed the door, locking the world away from he and Spencer.

"Let's get the shower going." Derek said quietly, touching Spencer's forehead as he sat in a chair, shivering and struggling to stay awake. "Quick wash and you can sleep."

"Can't...I just..." Spencer mumbled, pulling his legs up onto the chair, exhausted.

Derek leaned down and kissed his forehead carefully. "Okay. You sleep. We'll talk later, and make an appointment with a doctor." 

He planted himself at the other side of the room in a small wicker chair. He watched Spencer sleeping for a whole two hours, not moving once, the argument of the morning completely forgotten and his mind completely off the case and devoted to ensuring Spencer felt better.


End file.
